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A review by alexiacambaling
If Cats Disappeared From The World by Genki Kawamura
5.0
Contains spoilers.
If Cats Disappeared From the World is a literary fiction novella translated from Japanese. It tells the story of a man whose days are numbered so he makes a deal with the devil to erase one thing from the world, and in exchange, he gets to live for one more day. However, the devil gets to choose whatever the man has to erase from the world and tests him to see how far he’d go to continue living. It’s a bit of an absurd novel, featuring a devil named Aloha who wears Hawaiian shirts, talking cats, and things disappearing from the world without us noticing it.
At its core, I’d say that this book highlights the difference between being alive and truly living. There was a certain nonchalance with the way the narrator erased the first few things the devil suggested. Sure, he did feel a certain measure of sadness when he did it, but he constantly felt like his living was more important. Phones? Not really necessary, if you think about it. Movies? Sure he was sad and movies helped shape the person he became, but living is more important. Clocks? The concept of time is a man-made concept anyway. It’s his life or erasing those things. 107 people have done it in this way, he thinks, so what’s one more thing if he gets to survive?
However, he soon realizes that it’s not so simple. Throughout the course of the book, he learns so much more about life, about enjoying living, and his relationships with other people. I thought that the way these themes were presented was really thought-provoking because it asks a timeless question: if you can give up something in exchange for living, would you really be able to give up anything? The narrator fears death but who doesn’t?
Throughout the course of the novel, we get a deep dive into the life of this man and his relationships with the people who had the greatest impact on his life: his mom and dad, and his ex-girlfriend. We also see how his relationships with his and his mom’s pet cats affected him. These relationships helped shape who he was and as we continue to read on, we discover more about how they eventually helped contribute to him making the decision that he did in the end.
I found it interesting, and in a way predictable, that the only thing that made him hesitate was the notion of erasing cats from existence. Don’t get me wrong- I don’t mean predictable in a bad way. In fact, I think that everything he had been erasing thus far led him to the conclusion that he did. It explored his relationships with other people and how he only really had his cat for company. For a few pages, the devil even makes his cat talk so that he could finally know what his pet was thinking. I think that the buildup to that moment of realization was beautiful and it made sense considering the way the novel was set up.
This book made me think of how we view familial relationships. It struck a nerve in me, the way they talked about familial relationships. Because it was true. Many of us think that family will always be there, that blood is thicker than water, that we don’t have to work on these relationships because family is family. In the end, the narrator realizes that he and his father had a lot of misunderstandings because he couldn’t understand the way his father expressed his love since he was a quiet person. They never bothered to talk to each other in any meaningful way. This led me to evaluate my own relationships and realize how important it was to actually try and actively strengthen relationships. As the narrator says in the book, “You don’t have a family. You make a family.”
In the end, the narrator realizes how much all the little things in the world contribute to making life worth living. The things he chose to erase may not have been noticed when they disappeared because they weren’t really needed, but they also helped to make our lives easier, more bearable. Phones and clocks helped us organize our lives and communicate with ease, while movies and art helps make life worth living. I liked how the narrator said that he can’t go on stealing things from the world and that there’s a reason why everything exists in this world. He says “And there’s no reason good enough for making them disappear.” This book made me think more deeply about life, about the things I love and what makes life worth living. There are a lot of things around us that may seem shallow or unnecessary, but serves to help make life more beautiful, worth living.
The writing was also beautiful, delivered in simple, yet lovely language. It’s not dense, sometimes lighthearted at points, but it really makes you want to root for the main character. The ending was also very emotional, but you can see how much the character has grown from the time he first met the devil. It was a great ending and I definitely shed a few tears at the end.
Overall, I think that If Cats Disappeared From the World was a great read and I highly recommend it. It’s a beautiful story about death and the meaning of life.
If Cats Disappeared From the World is a literary fiction novella translated from Japanese. It tells the story of a man whose days are numbered so he makes a deal with the devil to erase one thing from the world, and in exchange, he gets to live for one more day. However, the devil gets to choose whatever the man has to erase from the world and tests him to see how far he’d go to continue living. It’s a bit of an absurd novel, featuring a devil named Aloha who wears Hawaiian shirts, talking cats, and things disappearing from the world without us noticing it.
At its core, I’d say that this book highlights the difference between being alive and truly living. There was a certain nonchalance with the way the narrator erased the first few things the devil suggested. Sure, he did feel a certain measure of sadness when he did it, but he constantly felt like his living was more important. Phones? Not really necessary, if you think about it. Movies? Sure he was sad and movies helped shape the person he became, but living is more important. Clocks? The concept of time is a man-made concept anyway. It’s his life or erasing those things. 107 people have done it in this way, he thinks, so what’s one more thing if he gets to survive?
However, he soon realizes that it’s not so simple. Throughout the course of the book, he learns so much more about life, about enjoying living, and his relationships with other people. I thought that the way these themes were presented was really thought-provoking because it asks a timeless question: if you can give up something in exchange for living, would you really be able to give up anything? The narrator fears death but who doesn’t?
Throughout the course of the novel, we get a deep dive into the life of this man and his relationships with the people who had the greatest impact on his life: his mom and dad, and his ex-girlfriend. We also see how his relationships with his and his mom’s pet cats affected him. These relationships helped shape who he was and as we continue to read on, we discover more about how they eventually helped contribute to him making the decision that he did in the end.
I found it interesting, and in a way predictable, that the only thing that made him hesitate was the notion of erasing cats from existence. Don’t get me wrong- I don’t mean predictable in a bad way. In fact, I think that everything he had been erasing thus far led him to the conclusion that he did. It explored his relationships with other people and how he only really had his cat for company. For a few pages, the devil even makes his cat talk so that he could finally know what his pet was thinking. I think that the buildup to that moment of realization was beautiful and it made sense considering the way the novel was set up.
This book made me think of how we view familial relationships. It struck a nerve in me, the way they talked about familial relationships. Because it was true. Many of us think that family will always be there, that blood is thicker than water, that we don’t have to work on these relationships because family is family. In the end, the narrator realizes that he and his father had a lot of misunderstandings because he couldn’t understand the way his father expressed his love since he was a quiet person. They never bothered to talk to each other in any meaningful way. This led me to evaluate my own relationships and realize how important it was to actually try and actively strengthen relationships. As the narrator says in the book, “You don’t have a family. You make a family.”
In the end, the narrator realizes how much all the little things in the world contribute to making life worth living. The things he chose to erase may not have been noticed when they disappeared because they weren’t really needed, but they also helped to make our lives easier, more bearable. Phones and clocks helped us organize our lives and communicate with ease, while movies and art helps make life worth living. I liked how the narrator said that he can’t go on stealing things from the world and that there’s a reason why everything exists in this world. He says “And there’s no reason good enough for making them disappear.” This book made me think more deeply about life, about the things I love and what makes life worth living. There are a lot of things around us that may seem shallow or unnecessary, but serves to help make life more beautiful, worth living.
The writing was also beautiful, delivered in simple, yet lovely language. It’s not dense, sometimes lighthearted at points, but it really makes you want to root for the main character. The ending was also very emotional, but you can see how much the character has grown from the time he first met the devil. It was a great ending and I definitely shed a few tears at the end.
Overall, I think that If Cats Disappeared From the World was a great read and I highly recommend it. It’s a beautiful story about death and the meaning of life.